WP: Fanatic Sense of Righteousness

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Please give serious consideration to the prompt, doing so will highlight connections in the text we're reading. Please use all of the time provided -- keep writing even when you think you're out of ideas. Remember, writing is a thinking process; the more you write, the more you think! Although I do not assess daily writing responses for conventions, use them to practice your skills – try to write in complete sentences (avoid fragments, run-ons, and comma-splices) and develop other good habits (e.g., clear handwriting, capitalization, punctuation)

English 10 H - Writing Prompt: The Chosen "Fanatic Sense of Righteousness"

Reuven says that his father “didn’t mind [the Hasidic] beliefs. What annoyed him was their fanatic sense of righteousness, their absolute certainty that they and they alone had God’s ear, and every other Jew was wrong, totally wrong, a sinner, a hypocrite, an apikoros, and doomed, therefore, to burn in hell” (Potok 24). If the Hasidim believe that other Jew’s are wrong, we can deduce that they also believe anyone not Hasidic is wrong and will also be condemned. What do you think about these binary oppositions of US/THEM, RIGHT/WRONG, RIGHTEOUS/DOOMED, et al.? What impact does that “fanatic sense of righteousness” have on people who are not members of the “US” group? Do you see effects or impacts of a fanatic sense of righteousness" in the world around you, on either a local or a worldwide scale, which come from this kind of attitude? If so, what are they? Provide some examples.